


A Little Intel Is A Dangerous Thing

by wynniethepooh



Category: Gallagher Girls Series - Ally Carter, Glee
Genre: Crossover, Gallagher Girls AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 08:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/924273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynniethepooh/pseuds/wynniethepooh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENT IS CLASSIFIED. LEVEL FOUR CLEARANCE REQUIRED.<br/>MISSION STATEMENT OF MCKINLEY ACADEMY JUNIOR OPERATIVE KURT HUMMEL.<br/>DO NOT COPY. DO NOT SEND.<br/>TO BE RETAINED AT ALL TIMES BY THE MCKINLEY ACADEMY IN HIGH FACILITY LOCKDOWN.</p><p>So yeah, this is my mission statement. All I can say is, at least it's classified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Intel Is A Dangerous Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! So this is my first piece for the Kurt/Blaine Reversebang this year!  
> I do warn, this was entirely planned and mostly written before the sad death of Cory Monteith, so Finn is a supporting character within this story.  
> Thank you so much to Emmy for her lovely artwork (link to come) and the miraculous timing we had! Also much thanks to Teach for her awesome beta work!

I guess I should probably start from the start. 

I mean, if you’re reading this it means you have high enough clearance to gain access to this document, and either you’re my father, or you’re in desperate need of a little light reading. I mean, I’m only a kid: what could possibly be in these pages that are high on any CIA, MI6 or NSA priority list. I mean, if you have initials, this reports is probably not important enough for you.

Well, I guess one thing that is a little bit need to know, is the fact that I’m a kid that goes to a school for spies. And in the past semester, we had close interactions with a second school for spies. That bit probably falls into the category of need-to-know. But as i said, if you’re reading, I guess you have clearance.

But maybe I should clarify a few things anyway.

My name is Kurt Hummel, and I go to a school for spies. Wait, I said that already.

Well, specifically, I go to the McKinley Academy for Exceptional Young Men and Women. We’re named after the most average president in America’s history, but after his great work in the war and his sad demise, the board members of the day found it necessary to rename our school for him. That’s right, William McKinley was a spy. Needless to say, the average individual doesn’t know _how_ great his work in the war was.

From the outside, we must be the most boring school in history. Our grounds are right in the middle of Ohio, and by that I mean _smack bang in the middle._ If you took a ruler and measured equally in from all edges, you’d have our school. Well, I mean the _old_ borders of Ohio. The ones that no one but spies ever talk about.

If you want to find us on a map, we’re on the outskirts of Lima. Now back to the boring part.

The external view from our high, vine covered walls is that of a school with too much history and not enough modern education. Our teachers live with us, within our walls, all school year. We don’t leave our grounds unless there’s a really good movie on at the local cinema (and even then it’s probably just a cover). Our tuition costs, it is said, are through the roof.

But for the most part, the government pays our tuition. Or at least I think it does. Otherwise, the large projects undertaken in our research labs must be funded by money obtained from some _other_ source, and we like to at least _consider_ ourselves the good guys. But I guess it always is a matter of perspective.

Anyway, if you look a bit deeper, get past the seemingly obvious facade of too-rich-to-function and have a high enough clearance to enter, our school is kind of awesome.

If you ignore the fact that I share a room with three other guys, one of which is my stepbrother. Needless to say, one of these things is not like the other, and that thing would be me.

See, I’m gay. Painfully, obviously, bat-my-eyelashes-and-dress-me-in-pink gay. My voice is too high, I prefer musicals to sports and I would much rather share a room with the girls in my year than with the lugheads I’m stuck with. But not only do the girls not have a spare bed, both Headmaster Figgins and my dad agree that being with the boys is what’s best for me.

My dad, while we’re on the topic, is our technicians expert at McKinley. And that doesn’t mean he sits in a lab with computers and discusses surveillance tactics. No, he’s a mechanic by name, and spy by trade, and that means he makes a lot of really cool gadgets, and many of those involve making a car go faster. Or more efficiently. Or considerably cooler than previously thought possible. All I can say is: at the McKinley Academy, we like to keep our employees close to home. This would also explain why my stepmom is our in house nurse. Her experience tending for undercover agents in the War on Terror (the first one; the top secret one) came in handy when she wanted to settle down and keep her darling little boy, my stepbrother Finn, safe from harm.

Well, as safe from harm as you can get when your family is in the espionage business.

Our family, it could seem from the outside, would be typical of a spy family. All of us live most of the year round in a top secret facility in which those of us still of school age attend classes to improve our spying abilities, and those of us already experienced in the business perform their function as a necessary part of the spy community.

I don’t think I have to tell you that our family is _not_ the norm. Most spies are actively in the work place, and we don’t talk about those. Their kids come here, to McKinley, and they don’t hear about them for months on end. Sometimes they have a family to go home to over the summer, other times they stay with us in the mansion, where nothing much happens at all, but we eat a lot of ice cream and read a lot of books about covert operations around the world, like the first attempted assassination of Princess Diana. Yes, there’s a lot of books about thwarted assassinations. Or, if you’re Finn, spend more than enough time in our P&E (Protection & Enforcement) barn, punching bags and climbing rock walls.

Even more regularly the students at the McKinley Academy for Exceptional Young Men and Women spend their summer at safe houses around the world, hearing nothing much at all, and keeping themselves occupied with the meaningless things that help the average spy blend into a world where spies aren’t meant to exist.

Learning how to pretend you don’t exist, that the real you is, in fact, not “you” at all, is the trick of the trade.

* * *

 

The first day of semester begins with a rush. The first rush of new and returning students, arriving in their long black limousines. The first rush of teachers to guide the first years to their suites. 

Those of us who stay here over summer line up along the front steps, watching. There’s nowhere else for us to be of course. In my opinion, if we are here, we cannot be somewhere else, doing something that we shouldn’t be doing. Such as finding new secret passages and hiding places. 

Well, I guess I’m probably the only one that does that, even if we _are_ all spies.

“Kurt!”

Okay, so let me clarify something here. Rachel Berry (the very loud speaker of my name, if you hadn’t guessed that) is not really my friend. I spend my spare time and lunch times with her and the girls she shares a suite with - Quinn, Mercedes and Santana - and I would spend _all_ my time with the girls if I could help it. But Rachel Berry is _not_ my friend. Her voice is too loud and irritating, she thinks she is always right, and she has no idea how to blend in. And that’s kind of important for spies. Personally, I think she should probably be held back a level, but she’s also _precocious,_ and that means the teachers love the heck out of her.

“Hi, Rachel,” I said in my best monotone. “Did you have a good summer?”

“It was great thank you!” Total animation. If you squished Minnie Mouse and Barbra Streisand into one small little body, that would be Rachel Berry and her goddamn cheeriness.

“Hi, Kurt,” Quinn said from behind her with a quick smile before slipping through the wooden doors and into the school. I gave her a smile in return. She was bearable, even though she was the queen bee. If she wasn’t dating Sam Evans, jock, whose many jock friends regularly made my life a living hell, I would almost consider her a good friend, or at least a worthy adversary.

“Hey, lady boy.” The next body through the door was Santana, and she ducked around Rachel’s bouncing frame, popping her hip at me as she passed.

“I hope you had a good summer too, Santana,” I replied.

And then, finally, Mercedes. My _actual_ best friend.

“Hey, boo,” she said, taking my hand. I actually had an excuse to move away from Rachel so I took it, letting Mercedes lead me into the school. I’d been here for as long as I could remember, but on the first day of semester, it seemed like I was looking at it with fresh eyes. I could pretend I was a first year, stepping through those doors for the first time. Examining the wide staircase up to the mezzanine, the large double doors to the main hall.

We slipped up the stairs, following Santana and Quinn to the girls’ suite. Rachel was behind us, bouncing on her feet as she rolled her suitcase along the wooden floors, but none of us paid her any attention.

“So how was your summer, hunny?” Mercedes asked me. I took a moment to think about it before replying. “Boring.”

“I’m so glad I leave over the summer. Just to get this place out of my head for a few months.”

“It’s not bad,” I said.

“I know. But sometimes you need a break.”

I knew that sentiment well. If only I actually had an opportunity to have one. There was no place for me to go, not really. I could stay with my mom’s parents out on the other side of Lima, but even then, I wasn’t getting very far. I might as well just visit them for a day trip. And anyway, my dad likes me close, especially since mom died.

We were just passing through the Hall of History when we realized the East Wing, the corridor we normally take to get to the girls’ suite, was inexplicably blocked. In fact, it was padlocked. It should have been nothing for most of the students in the sophomore year or upwards, but it felt like a warning. _This is a place we do not want you to go._

So none of us touched it. We backtracked our steps a few feet to another side corridor and took the long way round. 

That didn’t stop us from talking about it, though.

“Why would they block off East Wing?” I asked.

“You’ve been here. You should know,” Quinn replied.

“I haven’t come this way since you all left.”

“And you didn’t hear them working on anything?”

“No. Dad doesn’t tell me anything need-to-know. You know that.”

Rachel leaned on her elbows, laying on her stomach on her bed. “Well, the real question is, what is it? Because the corridor is blocked off for a reason, and if they dare to tell us it’s because of faulty ventilation, I’m calling BS.” Yes, she’s one of those people that refuses to say “bullshit” out loud.

I rolled my eyes. “We’ll see what excuse they give at dinner, but you know what we’re going to have to do right?” 

Mercedes grinned and bumped my fist enthusiastically. “Break in!”

* * *

 

Breaking in was definitely not as easy as we thought. Of course, at dinner, Principal Figgins tried to brush off the closed wing as ventilation problems. But there is no access to high risk areas from the East Wing, so that was a blatant lie.

We broke our way into the technology lab to steal some of McKinley Academy’s patented Lok-Fil, which has, through experience, always opened any traditional lock I’ve encountered. It’s a putty, that when you squeeze it into the hole of the lock, fills to take up all the spare room the key would occupy, and push all the tumblers to the exact spot to turn the key. It was child’s play, but so was a padlock, so we weren’t concerned.

Until we got down to the corridor leading to the East Wing.

Rachel was on lookout, standing at the far end of the corridor and listening for voices, watching for teachers. We had no comm units, but she had a buzzer in her pocket that sounded just like a ringtone, which was going to alert us to get the heck out of there.

Santana and Quinn were set to scanning the corridors for other ways into East Wing, just in case - and it was a big _in case -_ the Lok-Fil didn’t work.

Mercedes and I were the ones that stood in front of the door, gently pushing the putty into the lock. We’d been at it for five minutes with no audible click when Mercedes grabbed the lock from my hand, pulling the Lok-Fil roughly out of the hole. 

“This isn’t a padlock!” she whispered angrily. “This is welded shut!”

“Welded-?”

She turned the bottom of the lock to face me. Inside, I could see the ooze of now hardened metal in places it shouldn’t be, and when she shook the main bulb of the lock, the arms didn’t move.

“It’s welded shut.”

I grabbed the lock and tugged at it, but I knew it was in vain. The lock was never going to give, not unless we went at it with bolt cutters, and I’m pretty sure the faculty would notice if we did that.  

“There must be another way in,” I said, stepping back from the door. Santana and Quinn were now out of sight, but Rachel was still at her place at the end of the corridor. “If something is in there, they have to have a way to check on it.”

I nudged Mercedes down the corridor until we were standing beside Rachel. “We’re not getting in through that door,” I told her.

Santana and Quinn were just returning. “No luck?” Quinn asked. I shook my head.

“Welded.”

“Damn.” Santana brushed her hair out of her eyes anxiously. “No luck on our end either. They’ve sealed off every way we’ve ever been able to get into East Wing.”

I frowned. Our school didn’t keep secrets from us unless they were need-to-know, and at least then they told us they _had_ secrets, just that they were too top secret for us to know about. This was different. This was deception, and they had something to hide that they didn’t want us knowing about.

“We know what has to be done, right?” Rachel said. She turned to me, and that was when I knew I probably wasn’t going to like it. Because that look was an arrow aimed at a target; me. “Kurt,” she said. “You’re going to have to spy on your dad.”

* * *

 

Friday Night Dinners in my family are a really big deal. It started with my mom and dad, back before Mom died, and it was the one time in the week where work and business had to be put aside. Mom would cook something delicious and Dad and I would praise the cooking and we’d talk about things like my grades and the friends I’d been making, or the football game from the weekend before. When Mom died, nothing much changed except the food became worse.

When Dad and Carole first met, and started the romance that was to blossom into me and Finn being full blown stepbrothers, the one improvement on Friday Night Dinners was that the cooking returned to a state which could be considered edible.

And still, the tradition persists. Dad and Finn talk about sports. Carole and I talk about fashion. And none of us bring up the ‘S’ word.

That was why I felt like a traitor, walking into Dad and Carole’s private living room on the ground floor. I was bringing the unspeakable into Friday Night Dinners, and if any of them found out - especially my dad - they were never going to forgive me.

“How’s your week been, Kurt?” was the first thing Dad asked when I sat down. He was already in his chair at head of the table and Carole was just carrying across the last platter of green beans. 

“Great,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. I think I succeeded, but my family is a family of spies, so they’re better at spotting your lies and misdirection than the average individual.

“How are the girls?” Carole asked. “Have they become any closer?”

“You know how they bicker,” I replied. “A summer apart has made them tolerant of each other, but it’s just a matter of time before that breaks down again. I’m interested to see what the catalyst will be this time.”

“What’s the bet it will be Rachel desperate to finish an assignment a month early complaining about too much noise?”

I raised my eyebrows. Normally Finn was pretty quiet during Friday Night Dinners. We both were. The parents talked, and we responded, and I, inherently, am more vocal than my stepbrother. Plus, he was the one dating Rachel.

“I was optimistic that the girls had weaned her out of that habit.”

Finn let out a short derisive laugh. “You know Rachel. She’ll do anything to get ahead.”

I did know Rachel. I was surprised, however, that Finn had taken the time to get to know her that well. From experience, he was more concerned about getting a hold of her boobs than in exploring her personality. Maybe he was a better spy than I gave him credit for.

“She sure does have drive, that Rachel,” Dad said with a grin.

“You know what she doesn’t have?” I mumbled to myself. “A filter.”

“What?”

“Nothing, Dad.”

“Good.” The kind of phrase synonymous with _I heard you and you better damn well have not said what I thought you said._ At this rate, dinner was going to take forever, and I still would have no opportunity to find out what was happening in the East Wing.

Thankfully, Finn beat me to it, though his intentions were clearly less suspicious than mine.

“So, Burt, what happened to block off East Wing? Figgins was saying it was ventilation problems. Was there a chemical leak or something?”

 _Or something._ Sadly, Finn did not have the extensive knowledge of the Academy that I did. He hadn’t taken the time to explore all the secret passageways to discover where the accessible vents are and where they lead. Well, he is a giant. He probably can’t fit.

“There was a problem in the tech labs-” _Not anywhere near the East Wing._ “-and we’re concerned about residual radiation in that area.” _Lies. All. Blatant. Lies._ “It should be dealt with soon enough, and then you’ll be able to use the East Wing again.”

I didn’t really feel like pinning the blame on my dad so I smiled and ate the rest of my green beans, but this wasn’t enough information. The girls would not be pleased if all I came back with was the extended story. What I needed was some real hard solid facts.

“Have they fired whoever caused the accident?” I asked, trying to make Dad slip up in a lie. We were already far too close into work territory here, and I was waiting for the push too far, when he would turn around and say the conversation was over, that the discussion about spying would have to end.  

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Figgins has to make that call.”

A cop out. A big fat cop out. But I wasn’t going to call him on it. If Dad’s lying to me, it’s for a good reason, and that’s why I needed to know what that reason was.

I let the conversation go. Finn moved onto the sports game, like was customary at Friday Night Dinners, and I had a short conversation with Carole about the latest fashions in Milan. But when Finn and I stepped out of the living room to head back to our dorms, I lingered outside the door, hoping to hear a little something extra. It was clear that it was weighing on Dad and Carole’s mind, and I was hoping the pressing would prompt them to discuss it between themselves once they thought we kids had gone.

I wasn’t wrong.

Leaning against the wall outside, I pressed my ear to the crack in the wall. Dad was speaking, and his voice was anxious.

“I know Finn’s easy going, he’s not going to be worried about this. But Kurt knows better. He’s better than that. He’s going to be suspicious, and I’m scared he’s made all the girls suspicious too.”

“Figgins has said they’re not allowed to know.”

We weren’t allowed to know something. I knew it.

“I understand, Carole, but it’s Finn and Kurt. I trust them more than any of these kids.”

“But they’re still kids, Burt. And they’re still going to tell everyone they come across. That’s what kids do.”

“It’s not what spies do.” He was right.

“But it’s what teenagers do. And they’re still teenagers, at least for the moment.”

I was annoyed that Carole was right. We were a school for spies, that should at least put us above the average teenager. But then I thought about Rachel, and her horrible lack of filter, and her inability to tread quietly despite her small frame. Some of us are meant for fieldwork, some of us aren’t. Some of us will spend the rest of our working lives risking our necks for our employers, and others will spend that time researching the newest technology to help us do our job better. But we are all spies. And we’re all at this school.

And we’re all teenagers.

“When Dalton arrives,” I heard Carole saying. “Then they’ll know. There’s no way to get around it then. We’re only keeping it from them for a short time.” 

“I know. I just wish we didn’t have to.”

* * *

 

“Dalton?” Mercedes asked, sitting cross legged on her bed. “What’s a Dalton?”

“A measure of atomic mass, but that doesn’t make sense,” Rachel answered. “A Dalton can’t arrive.”

“Are you sure that’s what you heard, Kurt?”

“I’m not making things up!” I grabbed the blanket that normally rested on the edge of Quinn’s bed and draped it around my own shoulders, pulling it in tightly like a cocoon. “They said _when Dalton arrives._ Is Dalton a person? Is it an operation? Is it a puppy?” Okay, so it was highly unlikely that Dalton was a puppy, but when you’ve grown up in a spy family your whole life, you long for a pet to call your own. 

“Why does it matter so much?” Santana asked. “You heard it yourself, they’ll tell us when whatever it is arrives. Can’t we just wait?”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “What if it’s a test?”

“A test?!” Rachel squeaked. “They can’t spring something like that on us, can they?”

“We’ve had pop quizzes before,” I said. “Maybe this is just stepping it up another notch. Maybe it’s a whole school test, to determine how ready we are for the outside world.” 

“But I don’t want to be in the outside world!”

“Too bad, Rachel!” I slid the blanket off my shoulders, balled it in my fist and threw it at her. She caught it as it reached her face, but she still winced.

“Hey!” Mercedes grabbed my wrist. “You don’t wanna do that, Kurt. Don’t get angry.”

“She’s the delusional one.”

“I am not!” she went to argue, but Mercedes shot her a look.

“You shush too. Stop.” She released my arm. “All that we know is that there is some mysterious who or what that will arrive soon to McKinley and it will be in the East Wing. Until we know what a Dalton is, we can’t get any further. Until we know what this mysterious Dalton is, we won’t know what’s happening.” She pursed her lips. “It’s time to get researching.”

* * *

 

I crept past the library on my way back to my own suite. I don’t like being there while the boys are awake. They look at me with wary eyes, even Finn. It’s like they think, just because I’m gay, I’m going to fall in love with all of them, and the fact that I had a crush on Finn before my dad fell in love with his mom somehow proves it to them. 

But when I arrived, stack of books ranging from _Famous Spies Of The 21st Century_ to _Operations That Secretly Changed A World_ in my arms _,_ Finn was still awake. He was under his covers, making notes in a spiral bound pad.

“Ever the investigator,” I commented dryly, setting the books on my side table.

“Says you.” He shot me a sideways glance, but turned away quickly as I started searching through my drawer for pajamas.

“This is for study.”

“So is this.”

“Bullshit.”

“Then I call it on you." 

I pressed my lips together tightly. “What are you researching?” I asked.

Finn frowned. “Nothing. Go to bed, Kurt.” 

It was easy for me to smile grimly and take my things into the bathroom to begin my skincare routine. It was harder for me to pretend I hadn’t seen the words scrawled across his little piece of paper.

_Residual radiation? What will a lock do?_

* * *

 

None of the books in the library helped. Of course they didn’t. If there was going to be a book that detailed the existence of this mysterious “Dalton” it would be in our sublevels, where the top secret information is kept. The sublevels are reserved for the kind of information that needs to be destroyed at a moments notice. There are books there whose words would fade when temperatures rise above 80 degrees, or when met with sunlight.

It’s also where our Covert Operations class is taught.

Joe Solomon is one of a kind, or at least that’s what all the girls think. He is, quite sadly, the traditional sexy James Bond-esque spy. Which makes all the girls fall head over heels in love with him and all the guys view him as a threat they have to take out. Or at least they would if he wasn’t so damn terrifying. 

In a classroom with Joe Solomon, it was know the answers or leave. You should have done your homework, you should be there ready to be tested on your knowledge, and when he gave you a quiz, the ‘pop’ came expected. He was all about teaching young spies how to enter the real world. And if you weren’t ready, you didn’t continue in his class. Covert Operations is the one class that is not compulsory at McKinley.

Which would be a good reason as to why Rachel wasn’t walking with Mercedes and I down to the sublevels. She spent the sessions we had CoveOps in the research labs for Advanced Chemical Techniques. You know when I said some spies just aren’t made for fieldwork. Yeah, let me spell that out for you again. Spies who aren’t meant for fieldwork are spies like Rachel Berry.

The door to Sublevel Two is hidden behind the largest bust in all existence. And by that, I don’t mean a very large statue, but the stone carving of the largest breasts in existence. She was supposed to be someone important, but the kind of important that’s not discussed. Her role in the fabled mission ranges from honeypot to chef, depending on who tells the tale, but at the time, they had found the time and funds to create the bust in her honor, and now it acts as safeguard to Sublevel Two. We call her Sierre, or at least the boys did. For reasons only someone well versed in History or fashion would understand. I happen to be both.

I pressed my hand against the flat top of the bust and waited as the scanners read my palm and fingerprints. I waited till I saw the flashing red signal on the wall at eye level and stood aside for Mercedes to do the same.

“Kurt Hummel, Mercedes Jones,” a woman’s pleasant, recorded voice rang out. “Proceed.”

The bust slid aside in tandem with a portion of the wainscoted wall to reveal a passageway inside the mansion. I would almost call it a secret passageway, but everyone in the Junior year or above had access to these sublevels, so it wasn’t exactly secret. We slipped inside and the wall slid shut behind us.

“State your intentions,” the same polite voice spoke to us. 

“Covert Operations class,” Mercedes and I returned together.

“Present for DNA testing.” We held out our fingertips under two flashing green dots of light and waited as two small needles spun from the walls and pricked our fingers. Needless to say, the first time that happened had been not only a shock, but a disaster. My arm was bruised for a week, but at least they got our DNA and let us enter.

I could feel the passageway moving as the security implements scanned our DNA and returned us with an all clear. We were sinking lower and lower into the depths of the school, a place dedicated to the most secret of secrets, and even though we’d done this a dozen or more times, it still sent a little bit of a thrill up my spine as we descended. Although maybe that was more delight at the fact that I was here and Rachel Berry wasn’t.

The movement of the passageway came to a halt and the wall opened up in front of us, revealing Sublevel Two. It was a spacious area, divided by misted glass partitions and filed encrypted data that even we couldn’t access. On the far side of the room, directly in front of us, sat approximately half of the juniors and Mr Solomon.

Joe Solomon was not the kind of teacher that sat and waited for his students. He stood at the whiteboard, writing down notes and as soon as the last of our classmates entered behind us, he erased the board and began afresh. We should already be able to know what it said.

I sat down at my desk beside Mercedes, scrawling the most important of the notes into my book. Two seats down, Santana was chewing on her pencil as she stared at the board, trying to keep every last detail in her brain. 

For twenty minutes, Mr Solomon wrote in silence about the benefits and risks of drops versus brush passes and we took notes, only a small breath of concentration audible as he swiped his dry eraser across the board again and again.

I’d written down the words before I had even interpreted what they had said. “We are going on a trip tonight. Pack light.”

Solomon turned to the class, capping his marker. “I will see you tonight, girls and boys. Five o’clock. Class dismissed.”

* * *

 

I wasn’t the only one that was panicking as we left Sublevel Two. Five o’clock was before dinner time at McKinley, and I had the feeling this little field trip wasn’t going to include a stop over for snacks.

“How are we going to eat?!” Mercedes moaned, flopping backwards onto her bed. “I don’t want to miss out on Miss Rose’s créme brûlée!”

“You’re worried about the food when there’s packing to be done?” Quinn pulled shirts and dresses from her wardrobe, flinging them across her bed. “Kurt, what do you think Mr Solomon meant when he said _pack light?”_  

“I don’t think you need the evening gowns,” I told her, and she frowned, putting the small stack back into her wardrobe. 

“We have to look our best,” Santana said with a grin, holding up the tightest black jeans she owned. “This is New York we’re visiting ladies.”

“Yes, but this is also a mission.” I hated to be the voice of reason, but I’d at least mentally planned out what I was going to pack on my walk to their suite. Suit pants, with enough give to be able to somersault without difficulty, a snug pale grey shirt, and my favourite vest, equipped with enough hidden pockets to hide a cell phone, a spare comms set and a flashlight. Those, I would wear, and in my leather backpack I would carry a set of soft linen pajamas, curled tightly into a ball, three apples, a water bottle filled to the brim, and spare underwear. Adequately prepared, adequately light.

When I saw some of the things coming out of the girls closet I cringed. 

“A mini skirt? Really? Can you roundhouse someone in that?”

“I sure can-!”

“-and do you really think showing off your butt really outweighs the risk of six inch stilettos? I know you can walk in them, but no one can successfully climb through sewers in those things and this is Mr Solomon we’re talking about. It’s not going to be pretty.”

“It’s New York City, Kurt! We need to be prepared!”

“For what? A horde of willing boys?” I flopped back onto Mercedes bed, pushing the heels of my hands against my eyes. “We’re spies! At least be a little practical!”

But it was no use. When I met them in the entrance hall after packing my own bag, Quinn had an oversized tote hanging off her shoulder, shifting her weight slightly to the right, and Mercedes was testing out the balance of her stilettos. I could already see this was going to end badly. And I was almost certain that I was the only one who had thought to grab a snack from the kitchen on my way there. 

I handed out my spare apples with a frown.

I had the feeling it was going to be a long trip.

* * *

 

When I was a kid, part of me always wanted to live in New York City. The high rise buildings, the winter snows and the crowds of people. I would be only a small part of the entire motion of things, a tiny part of the picture. A single ant in the giant ant hill.

But when we climbed out of the helicopter on the outer perimeter of the city and climbed into a waiting van, reading to take us to our mission, I began to realize all the ways in which New York City would never be a good place for a spy. And especially would not be a good place for this mission.

There were plenty of people, sure, and even more as we made our way into the centre of the city. It would be easy to get lost among the crowds. But the snow was falling heavily, and where the people thinned I could see footprints, dark against their surroundings. We would easily be followed in this weather.

“Your mission,” Mr Solomon said as we pulled up to the sidewalk beside Penn Station, “Is to catch the 8pm viewing of Wicked. And no tails.” He pulled the door of the van open and motioned for us to climb out. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. It sounded like the beginning of good luck, but Joe Solomon never said such a thing. He only motioned with one hand in a form of salute and pulled the door of the van shut, motioning for the driver to head off into the night.

And that was about the time I realized that we stuck out like a sore thumb.

Yes, our group had made the decision to dress casual. We were out of our uniforms, in clothing much more comfortable and conducive to spy work (although I was still judging Mercedes decision to wear stilettos). But of course we were a school group, whispering among ourselves. We looked like the tourists we most obviously were, and every native New Yorker going about their business gave us the look. The kind of look that says _What are you doing in my city?_  

We were never going to survive.

My first thought was to split up. If I could get myself away from the rest of the class, I might stand a chance to get to this rendezvous. I let myself fall to the back of our group, watching as the girls, and then the boys overtook me. And then, when I considered myself far enough back that no one would notice, I slipped into a cafe we were passing and joined the back of the queue.

At McKinley, we had no need for money, but I had a small stack of twenty dollar bills that I had been slowly collecting from birthdays and Christmas and I had placed three of them into my backpack, accessible from the side. I pulled out one of the bills and handed it over to the staff member, buying the largest mocha possible. The caffeine boost would have its pros and cons and the large size would at least give me enough drinking time to let the rest of my class get a good head start. 

I had just sat down, wrapping my hands around the drink to keep warm, when I heard the door of the cafe open, and Mercedes pushed through, pointing at me. 

“You!” she said. “Don’t you dare ditch on me, ever again!” The anger across her brow wasn’t too heavy so I grinned, taking a sip of my coffee. 

“I needed some space. I expected you to notice. I did tap you on the shoulder.” I mean, I hadn’t, but I might as well have, with the kind of attention she should have been paying.

“You sneaky bastard.” But she was grinning now too, sitting at the table opposite me. “Are you excited about the show?”

I could hear the things she wasn’t saying, the words that could not be said in this kind of public. One of the traits of a good spy is being able to read between the lines, and read the faces of your friends. And enemies. 

“I think it’s going to be good, but it’s a long walk.” _A long way to go, and a lot of opportunity to get caught by a tail._

“Then maybe we should get started?”

“Buy a drink, Mercedes,” I told her. “Take a deep breath and sit with me.”

She frowned, but stood up, stepping across to the counter to order. 

As she waited in line I pulled my backpack onto my lap and rifled through it, pulling out two comms sets. They looked like earbud sets, and they even had the famous Apple logo. Attached to each was a little device, shaped like an iPod shuffle. I placed one of the comm sets on Mercedes side of the table and slipped the other into my pocket. 

“You left your iPod at my place the other night,” I told her as she sat down with her drink. 

“Thanks.” She took the device and tucked it into the front pocket of her coat. “I always miss it when it’s not on me.”

I smiled and took a sip of my drink, but Mercedes was having none of it. I could feel the tension flowing off her, the kind of tension that in our business can either be very good or very bad. In the past, Mercedes had proven it to be a good thing, but that kind of tension could get me worked up, and I did my best work while calm. 

“I don’t think you’re taking this very seriously,” she told me, leaning across the table between us. Her voice was hushed, but I only leaned back in my chair and took another sip of my drink. 

“I’m taking this very seriously, Mercedes. But you know it was no good sticking with that crowd. They would have gotten us lost before too long.” Lost. And also found. “We’re at a disadvantage,” I told her. I lowered my voice to a whisper, but I didn’t lean forward. Too suspicious. “The people Solomon has watching us? They know who we are. But we don’t know who they are.”

I gave a glance to the other patrons of the cafe. There was a pair of elderly ladies by the door, gossiping about a nephew’s new girlfriend. Not impossible, but unlikely. Near the counter was a young girl, handing up her sticky dollar bill in exchange for a heart shaped cookie. Very unlikely, and possibly even related to an employee at this late hour. Not even Solomon would enlist someone so young. But in the far corner was a man about forty, studying yesterday’s newspaper and not drinking his coffee. A lot more suspicious. 

I tilted my head slightly in his direction, pointing him out to Mercedes but she didn’t even turn around. She’d clocked him already. 

“There is no trust in that relationship,” she said. _We can’t trust anyone if they were hired by Mr Solomon._

“I know,” I replied. I grabbed my coffee and stood up. “Have you had a deep breath? Got your nerves under control? Come on, we have a city to traverse, and as you said, not much time to do it in.” I slung my backpack over my shoulder and made my way out of the cafe, watching out of the corner of my eye as the man with the newspaper stood up behind us. 

* * *

 

We lost the man with the newspaper around Central Park. We’d ducked in a side entrance and disappeared into the maze, but he had not followed us. Mercedes and I both had our comm units firmly in our ears, and made our way to the centre of the maze and out again, right in front of the running track, I murmured to her, “One down. Innumerably more to go.”

She only grinned and moved onto the running track, holding out her hand for me. I took it and she twined our fingers together, leaning into my shoulder as we walked. 

We made our way past the Belvedere Castle, avoiding its high walls and few exits and instead stopped out the front, sitting down on the small park bench. On our left, two boys walked a dog, taking the bike track. As they passed us they turned their heads, giving us wide grins, but they didn’t stop. The labrador barked and bounded in a loop, turning back to face us, and the boys willingly changed tack, walking back towards us. When the dog stopped at our feet, I reached down to pat it. 

“Evening,” the older boy said. 

“Evening,” I replied. “Nice dog.”

“Cookie, down!” The dog was jumping up on my knees, sniffing into my pockets, and I ruffled his ears before gently pushing him off my lap. 

“Appropriate name,” I said. His coat was a dark brown, luscious and shiny. He licked the length of my hand and finally sat down on his haunches. 

“If only he’d behave better,” the younger of the two boys said. They were wealthy obviously, though not in any kind of romantic relationship. They stood as if brothers, though one appeared to be Chinese in heritage, and the other perhaps Italian. I guessed a boarding school. Their heavy jackets were Armani, and their watches looked like Rolex’s. In comparison, my outfits seemed horribly homemade, but at least I was more original.

Mercedes gave me a sideways glance, as if to tell me to stop judging them on their clothing. I stood up, rubbing behind Cookie’s ears one last time. 

“We better be going,” I said, and pulled Mercedes to her feet. “We have to meet Quinn and Santana at Starbucks, remember?”

The boys smiled like it was a shame to see us go, but only waved as we stepped away, holding their dog back from following us. As we rounded the corner, I saw them turn back the way they were walking and continue their rounds with the dog.

* * *

 

Ironically it _was_ at a Starbucks that we came across Quinn and Santana. They were stopping for their own coffee break, and motioned for us to sit with them as we passed the window. 

“You got clear of everyone quickly,” Santana said, sipping at her iced mocha. A cold drink on a cold day. Exactly like Santana. 

“I didn’t think staying with the group would really help our chances. You clearly had the same idea.”

“We all split about ten minutes in. Finn and Puck hightailed it straight towards the theatre, but we thought it best to slow down, and let the action up that end of town thin out before we got there. You clearly had the same idea,” she echoed.

“I was just quicker about it.”

Beside Santana, Quinn leaned back in her chair, swinging it up onto two legs. “So many cute boys out tonight,” she said. I tried not to think about the boys in the park, though neither Mercedes or I had exactly turned on much of the flirty charm. “If there wasn’t a time we had to meet the rest of the group, I would be having the time of my life. I’ve been missing a good flirt.”

“Didn’t you spend your summer in LA?” Santana asked, but Quinn only smiled.

I was starting to get a little bit annoyed. It seemed like none of the girls were very concerned about the mission. Was I the only one that understood how important it was? Sometimes it seemed like my classmates cared more about themselves than classwork, and especially assignments like this one. 

But then Santana nudged Quinn’s side and pointed to a man walking through the doors. “Our friends back.” She turned to us. “Gotta go, kidlets! Catch ya’ later.”

Maybe they took it more seriously than I thought. Mercedes and I stood too, following them to the door, but when they turned left, we turned right. 

* * *

 

We didn’t see Quinn or Santana again as we made our way towards the Gershwin Theatre. Our steps were calm and measured and we didn’t rush, no matter how fast our hearts were beating and how close to curtain up time we were. There was no one behind us, except for two men in construction suits who tailed us for ten minutes until we slipped down an escalator into a high price teen fashion store and then out the back exit. Mercedes retouched her hair in a passing shop window to check the other side of the street. This mission almost seemed easy. It was textbook kind of stuff, and we were good at it. We were clear, we were going to make it without any issues.

Until suddenly the two boys from Central Park were running towards us, dodging around a parked work van and a honking taxi to catch us. Their dog was still with them, but they had shed their jackets, tossing them over their forearms like the rich kids they clearly were. 

“Hey, wait up!” the shorter one asked, holding out his hand. His friend tugged on the dog’s leash to hurry him along and Mercedes and I reluctantly slowed to a crawl, walking backwards as they caught. The grin on the younger ones face was infectious and I returned it, with an accompanied raised eyebrow. 

“What can we do for you boys?” Mercedes asked my unspoken question. I could feel the tension in her voice, though it was subtle enough that I doubted the boys could. We needed to get out of there and soon, or else we were going to miss the show, and that would be the end of that mission, and any respect any of my classmates, or more specifically, Mr Solomon would have for either of us. Especially me. This was supposed to be my talent after all. 

“We forgot to ask your names,” the older asked, pulling the dogs leash and smiling, his attention focused on Mercedes. “And give you our numbers.”

A New York flirtation, that was what this was. An annoying, totally inappropriate and impossibly ill-timed flirtation. I scowled at Mercedes, but she only shot me a broad smile and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, swiping into it’s normal viewing screen so quickly I hardly caught it. 

“Mercedes,” she said as she handed over the cell. “And you are?”

“Wesley.” An old fashioned name, but I wasn’t going to judge, “and this is Blaine.”

The boy beside him held out a hand to shake with Mercedes, but I could feel his gaze on me, watching. I held out my own hand and he shook it. When I raised my eyes to his he was staring in a way that wasn’t uncomfortable, but made me feel as if someone was seeing more of me than anyone had the right to, than I had ever let anyone before. His grip was firm, but not too tight, and when he smiled, it showed in his eyes. 

“You didn’t tell me your name,” he said softly.

“Kurt,” I managed, and he let my hand go, though his eyes didn’t stray. 

“Where are you headed to, Kurt?”

“Uh-” My mind was horribly empty, and I reeled, my eyebrows furrowed. 

“The Gershwin,” Mercedes filled in for me, the words coming out in a rush. “We’re going to see the late showing of Wicked!”

Right. The show. The deadline. The rest of our class and Mr Solomon waiting for us at the theatre, and we were running late. 

“Let us take you there,” Blaine said, reaching a hand up to turn me by the shoulder towards the direction of the theatre. He fell into step beside me, and somehow the four of us were in a line, picking up our pace a little as we made our way towards our future. Our future with cute boys at our side. Cute boys that somehow seemed altogether more interested than anyone had ever been with us, ever. At McKinley, the opportunity to have intimate relations with anyone outside what basically constituted family was extremely limited. The change certainly wasn’t unwelcome.

As we walked, Blaine’s arm slipped neatly into mine, forming a link between our elbows as he slipped his hand back into his own pocket. When I glanced at him he only grinned, the kind of secretive grin that men gave women in movies all the time. The kind I never thought I’d ever be able to receive. 

“Here we are,” Wesley said with a flourish, indicating to the sign above us for the theatre. 

“Well, thanks for the escort boys,” Mercedes said, separating herself from our small line. “Our show starts in-” she checked her watch, “ten minutes. We’re going to have to say goodbye here, but we’ll call you!”

I went to slip out of Blaine’s arm too, but suddenly he was gripping my wrist in a loose hold, and even though I could probably knock him over with ease, that grip stopped me in my tracks. “We’ll come too,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to see Wicked. We can even call it a date, and we’ll buy dinner afterwards!”

“We’re actually meeting friends-” I tried to say, but Blaine was cutting me off.

“Please?” His eyes were wide, sincere. “I’m sure they won’t mind if you have a couple of tag alongs, we can pay for our own tickets.” His smile was so hopeful and his eyes so kind that I couldn’t help it. A little bit of me was bending for him. Okay, let’s be honest, a large part of me.

“Fine,” I said, and half of me was regretting it straight away, desperate to get out, get in that theatre and meet the requirements of this mission. But the other half of me wanted desperately to keep the cute boy with me, and create many more opportunities for simple flirtation.

I let his fingers slip through mine, linking our hands together and lead him into the theatre. I could see Mr Solomon, standing with the rest of our class beside the rest rooms of the foyer, holding their tickets in their hands. Finn’s eyes were horribly wide, darting between me and the hand I was holding. Blaine.

“No way,” I saw him whisper to himself.

“We’re here, Mr Solomon,” Mercedes said, stepping towards our teachers. “We’re here and we have no tails." 

“No tails,” Mr Solomon echoed. His lips were pressed together in a tight line. “But you didn’t come alone.” He held out his hand and from beside me, another darted out to shake it. “Good to see you again, Blaine.”

“And you too, Joe.”

Joe?

Shit.

* * *

 

The helicopter ride back to McKinley passed in almost silence. I sat alone, at the back of the seating compartment, staring at my fingernails and willing myself to disappear. I could hear the rest of the class whispering, talking about our failure. None of the boys had ever seen the strange boys, and no girl had even stopped to talk to them. Santana and Quinn recalled a pair of boys, one tall and blond, the other short and dark, who gave them smiles and tried to help them pick out clothing in Macy’s. But when they arrived at the theatre, their boys had gone.

Mercedes and I were the only ones to invite them along. We were the only ones who failed so horribly that our teacher refused to look us in the eye. Mr Solomon’s only words as we had climbed into the helicopter had been, “You’re not as good as you think you are.”

Part of me felt ashamed. Ashamed that I had let a cute boy divert me from my mission. Ashamed that I had thought him harmless, and completely devoid of threat. And ashamed that he had played me like a well tuned upright bass. Both of them had played us. And I certainly was not going to forgive easily.

But despite all the thoughts that scattered through my brain, circling and unable to be resolved, there was still an even bigger thought. Curiosity. These boys were more than they seemed, and I was starting to think I understood some questions that I had been longing for answers to.

I slipped into the girls room with a stack of books when we arrived back at the Academy. Mercedes raised her eyes to mine, giving me an apologetic smile before turning to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

“What happened out there?” Santana asked, leaning against the headboard of her bed. “You’re the best of us, Kurt, and you _screwed up!”_

The noise I made almost counted as a growl. “Don’t remind me.” I grabbed the first book off my stack and held it up, letting the girls examine the cover. _The Education of Spies Throughout the Centuries._ “This book,” I said slowly, letting my words sink in, “details how spies are to be taught and trained. It talks about our school, and how we only cater for American prodigies.” I glanced around the room. “But it draws attention to the fact that there _has to be others._ It doesn’t tell us their names, but it practically screams that they exist.”

“Are you telling us that those boys were spies?”

“They had to be! Solomon knew them well, had picked them for this mission, I bet. But they’re young, like us. They have to be school-aged still.”

Santana didn’t seem convinced. “Mr Solomon could have picked them off the street.”

I shook my head. “Nobody could get that kind of training without being taught. They were _good,_ Santana. You guys dodged your lot, but you didn’t do it intentionally, did you? They had you and you didn’t even know. You probably only evaded them because some other tail got in their way.”

She frowned. She knew I was right. 

“And if there’s another spy school out there, who knows what they can do? What they can teach us!”

I could feel my heart rate rising and I sat down suddenly on the edge of Mercedes bed. From across the room I saw Rachel, her lips pursed in a thin line and her eyes closed as she thought. It was like I could see the rotors and gears moving in her brain, hear the synapses firing. After a moment, she looked up. “It’s obvious.”

“What’s obvious?” Quinn asked, but I only grinned. I knew.

“I guess it’s not a big secret what Dalton is anymore.”

* * *

 

The rumor had spread by breakfast. I blamed Rachel. No one talks like she does, and she would have had to have told Finn, and from there, no secret was safe. Everyone was talking about the forbidden East Wing, and the mysterious Dalton. We students like to think we’re good spies, but sometimes I think we forget our teachers are better, because as we finished eating, Principal Figgins stood up in front of the assembled school, his demeanor calm, but something in his voice deadly sharp. 

“Discussion of the East Wing ends now. The ventilation problems will be resolved by the end of the week, and if there is one more word heard, the offending individual and any and all conspirators will be doing extra P&E with Coach Bieste.”

It was a threat, loud and clear. But not even he could really think a threat like that would stop McKinley students from gossiping. A silence fell over the dining hall as we finished our breakfast, but as soon as the doors to the Great Hall opened and the student body moved out on their way to classes, the roar grew again.

“I heard they’re boys-” 

“-heard they were _superboys-”_

“-going to be here training with us-”

“-maybe they’re good! Maybe they’re better than us!”

Mercedes shot me a glance as we walked out the front door, making our way to the P&E barn for the first lesson of the day. 

There was a lot of gossip, that was clear, and a lot of it was dead on right. But it was clear where the information was going to come back to. We were the ones who had asked too many questions about the East Wing, and it was our class that had witnessed the boys first hand. A part of me was expecting Solomon to knock on the barn door and drag us out of class for an emergency debriefing, but nothing of the sort happened. I only kicked and punched at as many targets as I could in a hope to get out some of my excess energy. 

Knowing something that you know you shouldn’t turned out to be harder than I thought. And knowing that something would change, and sometime soon, was even harder.

* * *

 

I felt full of pent up energy on the way to Covert Operations. I had been dwelling on the Dalton issue, and the whole _boy_ thing all day, and I’d spent too much time contemplating what kind of punishment Solomon would have in store for us. I imagined it to be painful and mortifying.

I was wrong about the pain, but my own mortification, I should have realized, was a given. 

We made our way down into Sublevel Two, holding out fingers, and positioning eyes to meet all the security checks. I settled myself at my desk, crossing my legs on my seat and getting my pen out quickly to start writing down notes, but the board was empty. There was no Mr Solomon.

“Um?” I heard Finn ask, turning back in his seat to look at me, as if I had all the answers. 

“What’s going on?” Puck echoed his sentiment, but it was at about that time that I heard the elevator humming, and the door opening, revealing Mr Solomon. He didn’t move. He didn’t even step out of the elevator. 

Instead he motioned for us to stand and leaned against the elevator, utterly bored with us. “Come on,” he said. “Time to meet your new classmates.”

Mercedes grabbed my arm as we stood up, shooting me a quick glance, but I didn’t need her look to stop my heart beating in my chest. I was not prepared for this. I was prepared for months of trying to get the teachers to slip up and reveal what was happening in the East Wing. I was prepared for a long time of gossip and whispers. Not _having them here the very next day._

But of course, a part of me was very interested in the possibility of _Blaine_ being one of these new classmates. Mercedes clearly didn’t think the same way because she shook her head at me and mouthed, _We are the scum under their feet._

This was a pretty true statement. I mean, the boys had clearly known about us, known we were McKinley kids, but we had known nothing about them. We didn’t even know they _existed_ till last night. And even then we were only strongly guessing. There was clearly an uneven distribution of intel between our two groups and it made me a little uneasy.

We all packed into the elevator, a frown on Mr Solomon’s face. The crowded space was clearly not his idea of a great time, but meeting a fellow group of student spies we didn’t even know about wasn’t my idea of a great time either, so I wasn’t giving him any sympathy.

I thought maybe we were going to meet the “new classmates” in the Hall, which seemed the most formal of places, but as we spilled out of the elevator, Mr Solomon led us down the corridor and through the foyer, out into the front yard. Even there, I could see no sign of the boys, but Solomon was still walking, so we all followed, and I realized there were other classes heading to the P&E barn too. The P&E barn? I wouldn’t say it was the best place for an introduction, ever.

But then again, I guess we’d already essentially been introduced.

We were just approaching the door when a hand reached from inside the barn and pulled the big rolling door open. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but the boys standing inside the big building definitely weren’t it. There wasn’t many of them, that was clear, and they seemed... small. Maybe it was the big barn, and maybe I was expecting the majority of them to be considerably more buff than Blaine had been.  

But clearly I had been playing into the spy stereotype again, because these boys looked just liek average boys. Average, teenage boys, with super cute smiles and I was _not going to play into anyone’s charms._

And there he was, grinning that smug grin, and he was striding forward, clearly the spokesman of the group. He shook Solomon’s hand and then had the nerve to turn to me and grin. _Grin._ Like my absolute mortification had been one huge wonderful joke. 

“Boys and girls-” _No “ladies and gentleman” this time, I noticed._ “Please give a warm welcome to the boys from Dalton Institute. They will be your classmates for the rest of the year. As most of you have probably guessed, they will be living in the East Wing. Needless to say, the area is still going to be off limits to all of you.” Solomon smiled, the kind of smile I didn’t really like that much. “We have to give our guests _some_ semblance of privacy.”

Without being prompted, Blaine waved at the group of wary students standing in front of him. “Hi, my name is Blaine.” He pointed backwards to the boys at his back, calling each by name. “This is David, Wesley, Thad. Nick, Jeff, Trent.” Six of them. Six ordinary looking spy boys.

Something felt horribly off, but I only grabbed Mercedes arm when we were given the instruction to leave, and hurried away from the P&E barn, trying to put as much distance between Blaine and myself as possible. I felt like the image of him in his ridiculous uniform (blazer, _blazer_ ) was burned into my retinas. The image was something I didn’t necessarily want.

We’d just reached the door to head back into the office when I heard the pounding of running feet behind me and my name being called. “Kurt, wait!” I turned around reluctantly, knowing full well what I’d find, but I’d almost hoped he’d look sorry or sympathetic. But the only expression on Blaine’s face was a half smile, almost a smirk. Jerk. 

“I just wanted to say sorry for the other day,” he said, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “It was a mission, you know?”

“Sure.” I turned back to the door, pushing it open with my shoulder and holding it open for Mercedes, letting it swing shut before Blaine could make his way through. He shouldered it open himself and reached for my arm, turning me back around.

“If we’re going to be classmates,” he said, trying to smile at me again. I wasn’t buying it. “Then we’re going to have to be at least cordial with each other. Friendly would be nice.”

Great. The posh _Dalton boy_ was trying to gain my attention, and get me on his side. Well, I wouldn’t be falling for it. No matter how well that damn blazer framed his shoulders. 

“Cordial is what you’ll get,” I told him and turned away again, following Mercedes up the stairs and through the doors to my own suite. I don’t know why I chose to go there, but some part of me wanted privacy, even from the girls. Mercedes dropped me at my door, squeezing my elbow and then hurried on to her own suite. She didn’t laugh, she didn’t nudge me in the ribs to tell me how cute he was. I didn’t want to think about the fact that it was because she already knew that I knew.

I reached my bed, flopping down onto the covers and pulling my pillow over my head. I resisted the urge to scream.

* * *

 

Classes were called off for the rest of the day. I wasn’t aware of it until Finn arrived at the suite, dumping all his books, but he shook my shoulder in the gentlest way he could manage and told me he’d see me at dinner. 

 _Dinner._ Dinner where I was going to have to probably interact with these boys from Dalton, and by the way Blaine had followed me from the P&E barn, interact directly with him. I considered ditching, but dad didn’t like it when I didn’t eat, and the kitchen staff wouldn’t take kindly to me sneaking a spare meal from the kitchens.

I gave myself as long as I could to prepare, putting off the inevitable. I showered before the rest of the boys got back to the dorm, spent half an hour rethinking what I was going to wear, and read over my essay that was due the next day just to make sure I’d included everything. I was being ridiculous, a part of me knew, but the rest of me very much didn’t want to be at dinner, and any excuse that might actually be accepted was going to be a good one.

But still I found myself, five minutes before meal service began, walking down to the dining hall, dragging my feet.

Mercedes and Quinn were waiting for me in the entrance hall. I could see Santana with her friend Brittany from the year below us, just moving into the dining hall, and across the other side of the room I saw Blaine. 

He’d stripped himself of his blazer, choosing instead to wear only his crisp shirt, rolled up to his elbows. Somehow I felt totally underdressed, though I’d spent that whole half hour debating how I was going to look appropriate for this meal. Not overdressed, like I wanted to be there, but not underdressed either. I felt like I stood out horribly, and that was not eased by the way his eyes scanned me as he paused in mid conversation with Tina, one of the sophomore girls.  

“Kurt!” he actually thought it appropriate to call out, and I turned away, grabbing Mercedes around the arm with one hand and Quinn with the other. I could feel my face burning, and Quinn was silently laughing, but I only squeezed her arm tighter and led her into the dining hall. 

“I do not want to be here right now,” I whispered into her ear. “Don’t push me.”

“He’s cute, Kurt. And he likes you. He just wants to flirt. Why don’t you let him?”

I turned my gaze to Mercedes, my eyebrows high. “Do you hear what this traitor has to say? Flirt with the enemy? No way!” I expected Mercedes to agree with me and possibly dig into Quinn too but she only smiled.

“They’re clearly not the enemy if Mr Solomon invited them to stay for a while, are they?”

“You are way too trusting in Joe Solomon,” I told her, but only found our seats, pulling the plate towards me and starting to pile on roast lamb and potatoes. I added pumpkin, squash and onions, and a good helping of peas and had just picked up the gravy when I realized we had a free seat opposite us. A free seat that if my luck continued its bad streak would soon be occupied by one Blaine the Dalton spy. 

Yeah, my bad luck streak was still running. But everyone could probably see that coming from a mile off. It wasn’t really that hard to pick. Still, a part of me had hoped, and had hoped very dearly.

He sat down right opposite me and started pulling potatoes onto his own plate. I’d considered my own plate pretty full, but it was mostly that way to distract myself. His plate, I noticed, quickly became full with everything he could get his hands on, including Yorkshire puddings and an apple. An _apple._ But he started eating into it without speaking a word, only raising an eyebrow at me as I stared.

And yes, I was staring. I didn’t mean to, but the ferocity with which he attacked the meal demanded attention, and there wasn’t much I could do about that. Beside me, Mercedes cleared her throat, and Blaine smiled. Not a single hair out of place, and his mouth wasn’t even full, though he’d managed to already shovel down three potatoes. 

“Hi, Mercedes,” he said politely. “Hi, Quinn. Kurt.” He gave me a nod of his head and a smile and I nodded in return. There was no way I would fake a smile for that sleaze though. 

“Hey, Blaine-” Mercedes replied as if to his last name and stopped all of a sudden. “I was going to say ‘Blaine Dalton,’” she giggled. “But that’s not your name.”

“Anderson,” he said, roast carrot halfway to his mouth. Man, that kid ate a lot of vegetables. If not for the three neat slices of lamb on his plate, I’d say he was vegetarian. Definitely not the average boy. “Blaine Anderson.”

Quinn grinned. “That’s such a nice name. Fabray, Hummel, Jones.” She pointed along our little line, saying each of our names in turn. I felt like this was information that should not be given out so freely to the enemy, but I couldn’t shut her mouth now. 

Blaine grinned and took a bite of his roast. “Matches you all perfectly.” I didn’t want to think about what that meant, what kind of secret information he could have about us. “I mean, your names all flow well. They sound right. Quinn Fabray. Kurt Hummel. Mercedes Jones.” Right, the smooth bastard. He was even smiling that horrid smile at me, like he knew what I was thinking.

“Our parents did choose them with our family names in mind,” I said with a scowl, turning to my meal. I didn’t feel like eating anymore, not at all. I could feel my defenses rising, and although a good part of me knew it was irrational, I couldn’t stop it. “I’m sure your parents would never have picked a name for you that didn’t go with their family name.”

“I don’t really know how much care they were taking when naming me, but I agree. No odd sounding names from my front.” He grinned, leaning back in his chair. “Tell me, Kurt. Why are you still so angry with me?”

Me? Angry! I grabbed my fork and pushed it into a potato. The amount of force in the action surprised myself. “I’m not angry with you,” I managed to say.

“You’re not a very good liar, Kurt.” I could feel the blood rising in my face and pooling in my cheeks, but I forced my breathing to slow down and raised my eyes to his. 

“Are you telling me I’m not a good spy?”

He grinned. “Not at all. I’m sure you have a lot of natural talent, and with a bit of work, we can build you up to be something amazing.” And then he winked. He fucking _winked._ He wanted to get a rise, I know, so I used my fork to shuffle my food around my plate. Beside me I could feel Mercedes silent laughter, but I elbowed her in the ribs and she quickly stopped. 

“I embarrassed you, didn’t I?” Blaine asked. “That’s why you’re so mad. No one here could ever get the best of you, and I was the one that managed it.” His smile was gone and in its place was only determination. “That’s why we’re here. There are things your school has to teach us that we can’t provide for ourselves. And there are things we know that we can teach you.”

I was never going to learn anything from him! Not when he treated me like a child! I stood up and pushed my plate away. “When you’re ready to learn,” I told him. “I might be ready to listen.” And I stepped away from the table, out of the dining hall. I averted my gaze from my classmates, and from _his_ classmates. My face was still flushed red, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but my blood was boiling. 

As I sprinted the last few stairs to my suite and pushed myself under the covers without even changing, I at last began to think about what I’d done. I had ran. I had let him get the best of me once more. I felt like a fool, and not one little part of me felt like a spy at that point.

But I could feel my instincts coming back to me. I had been unprepared for his onslaught. I wasn’t going to let it happen again. 

* * *

 

The month of the visit of the Dalton Institute boys was set to be, well let’s say, eventful. Our classes picked up gear - and no one could have described them as easy in the first place. Teachers were placing emphasis on our skills not only in the tasks, but also in cooperation. I couldn’t help hearing my mother’s voice in my ear, when I first learned the truth about their lives, before she’d died. _Spies always work alone._  

In Advanced Encryption, we were encouraged to formulate our own codes, specifically targeted to our allocated reader. If that person could not decode our message, we had failed. If anyone else in the class could manage it, the score was even worse. 

In History of Espionage, we examined cases in which operatives worked together to infiltrate the target. I couldn’t help pointing out the many instances of double crossing and failure of trust. But Mrs Hagbert only smiled at me and said, “A degree of trust is essential in this business, Kurt. We trust our ruses will succeed, that our equipment will not fail, and that the people around us can catch us if we fall.” But I still didn’t trust any of those boys to be watching my back.

It was as if every professor in the school had latched onto the new challenges and opportunities brought about by having the new boys from Dalton at our school. Mercedes was absolutely thrilled. She and _Wesley_ were getting along quite splendidly, as she described it. He had apologized for lying to us, or at least expertly evading the truth. With their trust rekindled, they spent every class pairing up in the new activity regime, sharing secret little jokes and whispering behind their hands. Even Santana and Quinn were getting tired of their connection, and Rachel complained to me about how much she talked about him before they went to bed. Yes, _Rachel._

As was probably easy to guess, there was no ease in the onslaught by Blaine to get my attention. During every class he would be paired with me, sometimes through the decisions of the professors and sometimes through his own persuasion. For my own part, I valiantly withstood his partnership, completing my half of the task with little complaining. I mean, there was a bit, but it was mainly aimed at the girls once we’d stepped out of class. I didn’t talk to him except when I had to, and kept all our conversations strictly professional. I was surprised at how well he took my blatant ignoring of his advances. After the first few, he quickly stopped and took on board my own tack, sticking to the task at hand.

Until P&E that is.

Of course it would be P&E. As is probably a little bit obvious from the name, my least favourite part of Protection and Enforcement is the physical part. _All of it._ And that complete lack of enjoyment only increased when Blaine Anderson was in the room. 

The first thing I realized stepping into P&E was that he had a big problem with personal space. In the classrooms he was held at bay by the rigid tables and chairs, but in the relative freedom of the barn, he stuck to my side like glue. 

We were working on hand to hand combat, yet another one of the ingenious ideas to foster trust between our two schools. His hands immediately found my shoulders, sliding his hands down my arms until his fingers locked around my wrists. When I tried to break free, he held tighter and hooked his chin over my shoulder, grinning beside my ear. I could see his face in the mirrors that lined the walls, and there was no mistaking that smug expression.

“You think you can beat me?”

“I think you have a long way to go.”

I twisted again, trying to free my wrists from his grasp, but he was right, he was strong. Or at least in his arms. I kicked back with my heel, digging it into the fleshy top above his kneecap. As I’d hoped, he flinched and loosened his grip on my hands so I twisted out of his grasp, turning to face him.

“You know, you would seem so much nicer if you lost that very large part of you that’s an asshole.”

Blaine shook out his leg out to ease the tension in his muscles from my kick. “Me? Asshole? I don’t know what you’re talking about?” But he was grinning. “I just want to be friends here, Kurt.”

“No,” I told him. “You want to teach me a lesson. You think you’re better than me. And you’re an asshole.” We were circling each other, my hands held out in front of me, ready to block his attack.  For his own part, he was walking lazily, gait back to normal. As my back came close to the wall, he spun, pushing out his arm, but it didn’t come close enough to hit me. A false attack. I bit into my cheek but I didn’t let myself flinch. 

“Good,” he said with a smile. “Better. Keep on your guard.”

“Stop lecturing me.” I raised my foot high, kicking into his solar plexus but he went with the movement, letting it push him backwards, and he came back barely winded. 

“If you’d listen, I’d stop telling you what to do. You can learn a lot from me.” He reached forward, aiming for my neck, but I jumped back, closer to the wall. I resisted the urge to taunt him. 

“Come on, Kurt,” he laughed. “Stop being so defensive. Accept my apology and then we can work on this spy thing together.”

“You have no interest in working with me,” I replied. “We both know it. You just want to know that you’ve beaten me, that you’ve won.”

He grinned. “I do like a good challenge.”

“This is all a game to you, isn’t it? A fascinating game that you think you’re sure to win.” I kicked out again, but he jumped back this time. I was anticipating his movement though, and I centered my weight again so I didn’t topple over. 

“I’m good at games.” He was smiling smugly, the kind of smile that positively infuriating. I could see in my peripheral vision that the rest of the class had stilled, watching us, but I wasn’t giving up. This was going to end one way or another.

“You’re not the only one,” I told him and spun my leg out once more, aiming to knock his legs out from under him, but he anticipated my movement and grabbed my foot in a quick grasp, tugging me off balance. I tipped to the ground in what felt like slow motion. 

My back smacked into the hard gym mat, pain blossoming across my shoulder. I let my eyes close for a second, gaining my bearings before attempting to sit up. But as I made to return to my feet, Blaine’s body weight settled over me and he gripped my wrists tightly, pushing them above my head. 

“Disorient your opponent,” he told me as I blinked up at him. His face was inches from mine and he was smiling. “Distract them. And while they’re paying attention to their own tricks, anticipate them. And win.”

He leaned back, separating our faces and I took a deep breath. I tried to lift my arms but they were still pinned above my head. 

“Blaine, one,” he laughed. “Kurt, zero.” And then he stood up, holding out a hand to pull me to my feet. I didn’t take it. I pushed myself up, testing my bruised shoulder muscles and stood up facing him. 

“You’re an asshole,” I repeated and grabbed my bag from its spot on the edge of the room, turning away from him. 

“And you’re a sore loser.”

I chose not to answer and instead left the P&E barn. My face was burning, and although I knew the girls and my brother had also been in that barn, all I could remember was Blaine and how he had bested me again. I couldn’t let it keep happening, it only fueled his ego.

My own ego, I had to admit, was severely bruised. I used to consider myself good, ready for anything. And then along came the Dalton boys and I had been thrown off center, horribly disoriented, just like Blaine had made me in that combat session. I ran my hand through my hair and frowned, biting my lip angrily.

I was mad at him, and I was mad at myself. It was confidence issues, clearly. He made me nervous and distracted, and he knew it. That was the worst part. 

I was just reaching my suite when I felt a presence behind me. I turned, expecting it to be Blaine, but it was Rachel. I waited for her to say something rude or downright annoying but she only gave me a sympathetic smile.

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head softly. “Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t beating yourself up. It’s normal you know.”

“Normal? What do you mean? To suck?”

“No. To be distracted by someone you’re attracted to.” She looked me up and down. “He knows it, so you need to embrace it too, if you’re going to best him.”

Embrace it? What did she mean embrace it? My _attraction_ to him? I wasn’t even-

“You are,” she said, even though I hadn’t spoken aloud. “He’s handsome, and he pushes you in ways that you haven’t been pushed before.” She leaned closer to me. “Remember, Kurt. He _knows_ it.”

Then she turned to go, patting me on the shoulder in sympathy as she went. I don’t think I’d ever experienced a conversation more confusing or one sided. But the words kept spinning in my head. _Handsome. He knows it. Attraction._

Yeah, she was right. Of course she was. Who wouldn’t be attracted to Blaine Anderson? If I was honest with myself, I should have known it from our first encounter, on the New York streets. But she was also right. _He knew it._ He knew it so well and he used it. 

I had to find a way to beat him at his own game.

* * *

 

Finding the opportunity turned out to be harder than I expected. It was as if after the encounter in the P&E barn, Blaine had taken a step back. He sat with his own schoolmates at dinner that night, didn’t talk to me once, and escaped back to the East Wing as soon as he was finished with his meal. In Languages he paired up with Quinn, their banter easy and polite, but his eyes didn’t glint the same way they did when he talked with me, despite the fact that she flirted shamelessly.

I tried to tell myself it was because he had no interest in playing her but a part of me couldn’t help wondering that maybe at least some of his demeanor meant that he was attracted _to me._ Maybe I wasn’t the only one feeling off center due to emotions I couldn’t control. 

But then I remembered his cocky smile, and his own self assuredness and I quickly returned to reality.

I didn’t try to make interactions between us. I was smarter than that. When my opportunity arose it would be natural and totally unpredictable. That way, he would never know that I had the upper hand until it was already too late. 

It was with this idea in mind that I made my way to Culture and Assimilation class, bag swung over my shoulder. I hadn’t tried hard to look particularly nice, only wearing a typical outfit for me. I’d planned in advance to sit between Rachel and Mercedes even though Mercedes had made a recent shift towards sitting with Wes. I’d even purposely avoided taking notes during my reading for class, to avoid being called on to ask questions.

But of course my plans went out the window when Ms Sylvester walked into the room. 

“Clear the tables,” she ordered. “I want a neat square in the centre of this room. Today you’ll be learning how to dance.”

The class was quick to obey Ms Sylvester’s orders. Somewhere in the mess of moving the classroom, I found myself wedged between Santana and Quinn and suddenly, when I wriggled my way out between their grasp, I had Blaine standing beside me and he was smiling.

“Hi,” he said softly and bumped his shoulder into mine. The hairs on my arm and the back of my neck stood up, but I didn’t blush and I didn’t inhale. I felt in control. 

“Morning.”

He seemed surprised by my response but was trying not to show it. When we shifted to the back of the room he stayed by my side and I let him. The opportunity seemed to be showing itself and I wasn’t going to let it pass unless I absolutely had to.

“With our new additions from Dalton, we have an overly large number of males in this class,” Ms Sylvester told us as she stalked to the front of the room. “So some of you losers are going to have to pair up with each other. And do it quickly! No fussing!”

I could feel the shift in Blaine’s demeanor beside me, and as he turned to face me I held out my arm, preempting his motion. “Dance partner?” I asked. He looped his arm through mine and almost smiled. There was a tension in his shoulders like he was waiting for me to change my mind, but I only lead him out into the center of the makeshift dance floor and positioned us facing each other. 

“Are you leading, or am I?” I asked him and instead of replying he took my hand and wrapped his arm around my back, pulling me tight. “Okay,” I said. “I see where this is going.” 

He grinned, but only waited until Ms Sylvester started the music before beginning to move, twirling us efficiently around the room. He wasn’t bad, though I wouldn’t say his technique was anything better than passable. I could have led better myself, but the aim of today was to use his own methods back at him, to get into his soft spots and get him off guard.

Part of me wondered if he even had a soft spot.

The music reached a climax and right on time he dipped me. I rolled with the motion and waited for him to pull me back up. Across the room I could hear Mercedes giggling but apparently Wes had danced the Macarena for her, so I guess that’s understandable. I mean, if he wasn’t the enemy of course.

“Do you like dancing?” Blaine asked when we were face to face once more. The music had slowed and so we had shifted into a calm waltz, gliding smoothly across the room. From the corner of my eye I saw Finn step on Rachel’s toe. 

“I don’t have much opportunity, but it’s not bad,” I replied. “And you?”

“There’s not much time for dancing at Dalton, but my mother taught me to dance when I was a kid.”

I smiled, but I hid the fact that it was a little bit forced. My mother too, had taught me to dance before she died. But I wasn’t going to get into that horrific battle of childhood memories and questions left unanswered. Plus, it was classified.

“Well, you’re not bad,” I said instead and let him carry me across the dance floor back to our original position. The music came to a stop but I let his hands linger on my waist for a moment, counting the seconds. One, two, three. A normal individual would be asking how many seconds were appropriate for a platonic, class-based non-date, but instead I was wondering how many seconds he was willing to hold onto this charade of closeness, of mock intimacy, until he decided he’d done enough. 

But Ms Sylvester was already removing the disc from the CD player and he still hadn’t released my waist. “Class dismissed, but I want practice from all of you. Dancing is an important skill to learn in the covert arts. One day you’ll need it.”

His hand was still resting at the small of my back as I grabbed my bag and started walking towards the door. He kept with me, guiding me and it wasn’t until I turned to head towards my suite to get changed for dinner and he turned towards the East Wing that he finally released me. 

“I’ll see you at dinner, Kurt,” he said and smiled his coy smile. 

And that’s when I realized I hadn’t made one single move to put him off guard that whole session, other than flirt a little bit. And he had flirted back. And I’d kind of liked it.

Shit.

* * *

 

So I don’t think falling in love with the enemy was ever part of the mission objective and I certainly wasn’t going to add it now. But Rachel had a point. I was attracted to the guy and the damn thing was he knew it. And I knew it. And everyone bloody well knew it. 

I wasn’t going to do a thing about it though, because he was only playing me and I was very confident in that fact. And I was also very confident in the fact that I wasn’t going to let him take this any further. 

Dad had once told me a very important piece of advice when I first started at McKinley.  
“Sometimes,” he’d told me in his gruff smile. “You have to let the mission take you where it wants. Embrace it. Don’t fight it. The intelligence comes easily then.”

And that was the method I was going to use to get into the head of Blaine Anderson and figure out why he was such a pain in the goddamn ass.

I dressed up for dinner without going past the girls’ dorm. I didn’t want to raise suspicion, especially when Rachel had dug herself deep enough into this whole problem already. Mercedes I was pretty safe with, she was too infatuated with Wes, but Quinn and Santana on the other hand were cunning as foxes and Santana could sniff out a first year dressed to impress from three rooms away. I’d be a walking target for their cynicism.

So instead I slipped straight down to the dining hall and waited outside the main doors, my heart racing. I kept my breathing even but I could feel my pulse beating in the tip of my ear of all places and I was resisting the urge to tap my foot. 

The Dalton boys were always fashionably late to dinner but Blaine had been breaking a lot of those habits the last few days, so I wasn’t surprised when I saw him coming down from the East Wing, a slight skip in his step. He stopped when he saw me and grinned. 

“Evening.”

“Hi.” I held out my arm as I had during Culture and Assimilation and waited for him to take it. We were the first ones to dinner and we had our pick of seats. I lead us to the very end of the table furthest from where the girls normally sat and when he questioned it, I only told him, “Privacy.” I kept my smile coy.

We didn’t talk as we ate, which I was thankful for. The silence, surprisingly, wasn’t too awkward, so I ate my casserole and watched Blaine Anderson out of the corner of my eye. He was smiling, the kind of smile that quirks up just the corner of your lips, and every so often he’d turn his head to watch me. He knew I was watching, of course he knew, but part of me couldn’t help it, and the other part of me that was running this mission knew that I didn’t want to. 

If you couldn’t already tell, I’m atrocious at flirting. Coy glances I can do, but anything like intentionally placing my hand over his- God, it was just too cliche and seemed incredibly forced. Smiles. Smiles were nice.

But smiles weren’t really going to get the mission done, I was guessing. I needed to up my game, or at least make _him_ decide to take this a little further. So far, he had been very good at initiating our, for want of a better word, flirtationship. But each time I had cut him down. Now that I was actually interested, here he was only smiling at me. _Smiling._

I’d just reached for the jug of cream to pour over my apple pie, trying to catch Blaine’s eye as I did so, when I heard the sound of Principal Figgins climbing up to the podium at the front of the great hall. I rolled my eyes in Blaine’s direction. The speeches were the worst part of dinner. 

“Students and guests,” Figgins said, pausing at each word for what he considered to be emphasis. “We are excited and pleased to inform the junior students that their midterms have been set for next Friday. All students in the junior year will be required to attend a ball in this very room in which all your skills gained over the past years of your education and so far this semester will be tested. Both students from McKinley and Dalton are expected to attend. Formal attire is required and you will receive mission details on the night of the exam.”

I could feel the room buzzing. Every junior girl was whispering to her neighbor what she would wear, how she would do her make up. The boys were asking each other what would be required, if there would be intruders for them to fight. 

“That is all,” Figgins finished.

Beside me, I could feel Blaine smile. When I turned to face him he was taking a bite of pie.

“You seem calm,” I said. 

“So do you.”

“I’ve had tests before. I’m best under pressure.”

“As all spies should be.” He grinned and took another bite of pie. “But a lot of others from your school are not so calm.”

“So are lots of the boys from yours.” In my peripheral vision I could see Wes and Mercedes with their heads bowed together, talking quickly and nervously. 

“Our training at Dalton is different from yours,” Blaine told me. “We don’t have tests or exams. Every day and every lesson is a test, and our pass or fail depends on our ability to keep up and stay alive.”

“Stay alive? You mean your teachers regularly put you in harms way? On purpose?”

“It’s the life of a spy, Kurt. You know that.” His grin was gone. “Our school is very different from yours.” He wasn’t kidding. The easy looks and flirty smiles of earlier in the evening were gone. 

“Well, you’re here now,” I said, trying to break the tension. “And you’re doing things our way.”

The corner of his lips quirked up slightly, almost a smile. “I just hope us being here hasn’t brought our way to your school.”

* * *

I’d stayed up that night, thinking about what Blaine had said. The idea that his school was different from ours in some of the most basic fundamental ways was somehow terrifying. Dalton Institute wasn’t a normal school, not even a normal school for spies. And maybe that was why Blaine was playing his little game. Because he didn’t know how to be a normal boy. 

When I woke up the next morning it was Friday and Finn stopped me before I left the suite. “Dinner tonight?” he said. “With Burt and mom?”

Right. Friday night dinners. The whole thing had completely slipped my mind with the coming of the boys from Dalton and the announcement of midterms. But it was tradition and dad would kill me if I broke tradition. So I planned my day around getting to Dad and Carole’s rooms at a reasonable hour. I finished my last class having spent most of the day by Blaine’s side - only sly glances and accidental shoulder brushes - and made it to dinner with five minutes to spare.

Finn was already seated at the table.

“Hey, Kurt,” Dad said as I sat down, smiling. “How’s your week been?”

“Busy.” It was the truth. 

“Yeah, with the boys arriving from Dalton I expected both of you to be run off your feet.”

“Isn’t it great!” Carole said. “A new lot of students to learn from and learn with during your junior year! I wish there’d been an experience like that when I was a student. I would have gotten so much out of it!” I probably don’t need to tell you that both my Dad and Carole are alumni of McKinley.

“Yeah, it’s just great,” I said, though there was no enthusiasm. 

“Fabulous.” Finn echoed my sentiments with just about as much bravado. Carole certainly didn’t pick it up. Instead she grinned and started spooning out cheesy cauliflower and potatoes. I really loved Carole, but she liked to ignore any and all sarcasm that came from Finn and I to the point that it was almost ridiculous. I mean, let’s be honest, most conversations I have rely deeply on sarcasm and wit. That’s my strong point!

“So the midterms are coming up,” Dad said. It was almost a question, but nobody bothered to answer it because we were all very aware of our impending trial by a jury of our professors. I was a little bit concerned about where the appropriate line of conversation was going to be drawn during this particular dinner. School, and especially school related things that directly involved staff, were very borderline Friday Night Dinner topics, and I was more than a little bit concerned that we were treading a dangerous path. A dangerous path that had two resolutions, both of which might or might not go hand in hand.

Either, a, Dad realized how far this conversation had progressed into spy territory and accused us of breaking the Friday Night Dinner code, which was highly likely. Or, b, _he_ would be the one to slip up and tell us something about the midterm ball that we weren’t supposed to know.

“Isn’t it great that the girls get to go into town to buy new dresses! And we can take you boys tuxedo shopping! I’m so excited for a new outfit!”

I should have known it would probably be Carole who would slip up. The parents were attending the ball. In clearly some kind of official capacity. I stored that information in the back of my mind, but didn’t press it now. If I let dad know I was piecing things together, he would close ranks. 

“You know me, Carole,” I said instead. “I just want to get my hands on those girls and an eyeshadow palette. Especially Rachel.”

“Hey!” Finn said, but he was smiling, so I wasn’t too concerned. Rachel did have a problem with an overuse of bright blue eyeshadow. And it certainly did not suit her.

“I wish we could get our assignment details sooner, though,” I said, wondering how much I could get from Carole. “It would make shopping and dressing ourselves so much easier. What kind of a ball is this? Should we be expecting to rappel from the ceiling, because I can’t see any of the girls being prepared for that kind of thing.”

I’d pushed them too far. “That’s enough, Kurt,” Dad said sternly. “It’s an exam. And I will not have either of you claiming an advantage over any other student. It’s just not fair.”

What also wasn’t fair was the fact that Blaine Anderson was playing mind games with me, and I was apparently woefully under qualified to play them back, if his current reactions were anything to go by. It wasn’t fair that he could charm his way into anyone’s life and he had chosen mine. It wasn’t _fair_ that I had to sleep in the boys’ suite when I could easily find a spare bed to drag into the girls. Sorry, that’s been a point of contention between Dad and me for a while now.

But I held my tongue. Dad had clearly decided that the school discussion was quickly turning into the spy discussion and was getting ready to back out. I helped him along by commenting on the quality of Carole’s meal, and then continued to eat in silence. Beside me, Finn did the same.

It wasn’t until we were leaving our parents’ suite that Finn and I turned to each other and I said, “I want to know more about this exam.” Finn only nodded.

* * *

 

Finding out more about the conditions of our exam was harder than either of us had expected. The most I had gotten from Dad beyond the few leaks from Carole was that because it was being held on a Friday we would be exempt from dinner. An evening ball then, though I’d pretty much assumed as such. 

On Tuesday morning, Figgins announced that afternoon classes would not be held that day, and instead an outing into Lima would be organized and supervised by Coach Bieste and Ms Sylvester to arrange the buying of new “exam suitable garments”. Blaine grabbed me by the arm as we left the school, but we didn’t say a word to each other the whole afternoon. I chose instead to help dress Finn, and also assisted some of the girls. Blaine found a suit of his own, and remained within my sight and arm span while we were outside the school grounds. His presence was almost comforting, if I didn’t know he probably had some ulterior motive. No, not probably. It was a certainty.

On Thursday, classes began to wind up, and no professor made any kind of move to go over the skills that would be required for the exam the next day. That night, the girls went into hair and make up trial mode, testing out what they were wanting for the night of the ball. I sat in the girls room holding hairbrushes and applying liquid eyeliner and eyeshadow. The girls were desperate to have a look down pat that they could complete themselves and touch up in an emergency, something functional but also beautiful. I didn’t want to mention the fact that most of them couldn’t walk in the heels they had chosen, and their dresses were horribly restricting. One of the many pros of being a male in the spy business. I guess that sounds a little bit sexist, but if you take the equal amount that the girls and I care for our wardrobes, the comparison is quite fair. It’s not my fault the female fashion industry is badly designed for spies.

The day of the ball itself, everyone was excused from classes once again. The seniors, freshmen and sophomores were encouraged to keep to their suites and were given extra assignments to complete over the course of the weekend to accommodate for the high staff requirements for this goddamn exam. The halls instead were filled with juniors rushing from suite to suite. I had hair pins thrust into my hand by Santana with a call of “beware the razor blades!”. Mercedes had gripped me hard around the arm to help her choose which lipstick colour to wear, despite the fact that she had chosen the dark plum the night before. Even Finn approached me, holding up two very similarly colored ties.

“The one on the left,” I told him and saw him on his way. 

Compared to the rest of my cohort, I felt incredibly calm. I had chosen my outfit the night before and laid it out at the foot of my bed. I’d done my best in classes all semester - or at least the best that I could with the presence of Blaine Anderson by my side. I stood at the top of the stairs leading down to the dining hall and watched and waited. Nobody seemed to notice, save for me, that the boys from Dalton were not taking part in the rush of bodies throughout the corridors. The door to the East Wing was closed, and I could hardly hear any noise from behind it. And trust me, I held my ear up to that door when no one was looking, in case I could catch the sound of someone talking. 

It was just before six o’clock that I heard the calm walk of Ms Sylvester entering the foyer and then she was calling up, her voice reverberating around the walls of the school. ‘Exam begins in fifteen minutes!’

Needless to say the panic only escalated. I went back to my suite to find the other boys in disarray, searching desperately for a way to conceal their nun-chucks in their dress shoes. I only gave a last scan of my bed and pulled out my desk drawers, checking I hadn’t forgotten anything, but I felt fully prepared. Or at least as prepared as you can be for a test in which you are very short on information.  

I made my way back downstairs and to the front of the entrance hall. Ms Sylvester, Principal Figgins and Mr Solomon were standing there, manila files in hand. By a quick estimate there was enough for each of us, and at least that gave me one more piece of information to add to the puzzle of this exam. Cover stories.

I reached the teachers just as the boys were coming out from the East Wing, dressed in their neat tuxedos. Blaine’s hair was slicked back like it had been the day they arrived at our school, and he was wearing a skinny yellow tie, bright against the rest of his clothing. When he saw me he grinned.

“Good evening, sir.”

I didn’t reply to his introduction, and instead I fell into step beside him. “Are you prepared?” I asked.

“A Dalton boy comes prepared for anything,” he said without a trace of sarcasm. “And what about you, McKinley kid?”

“It’s what spies do,” I replied. We stopped in front of Mr Solomon, but he didn’t make a move to hand out the manila files. He was waiting for the girls. I could hear them spilling into the corridors and trying to make quick movements towards the hall, but they were in restricting dresses and restricting heels and there were way too many loud arguments as to why none of them had chosen suitable outfits for the night. Rachel was the only one who had thought to wear flats and even then I associate most of that choice with the fact that she can barely stand in heels, let alone walk for any longer than three steps.

“Your colleagues look very prepared,” Blaine said from beside me and I almost snorted. But then my McKinley roots kicked in.

“They’re girls. They always look unprepared for everything.” Not technically true, but I wasn’t going to tell Blaine that. At least one thing McKinley had that Dalton didn’t was girls. He couldn’t be an expert on those too. “They’ll kick ass at this exam.”

“No doubt they will,” he replied with a smile. “Perhaps even their own. As they fall flat on their faces.”

I smacked him hard across the upper arm with the back of my hand, but I was definitely laughing now. He had a point. Although the girls looked beautiful and utterly appropriate for most balls, they seemed entirely unsuitable to attend this exam.

“Welcome, ladies. Finally,” Mr Solomon said from the front of the room, only the barest corner of his lip quirking up. “In a moment we will be handing out your files. You will have one minute to memorize the details. Your task for the rest of the night is to maintain that cover, to the fullest extent possible. Personality quirks, behaviours, memories. A good cover requires a good backstory, and we know yours. You better know it too.” And with that he began handing out the manila files, distributing them among the students. At the top of each file was our own name, printed in neat lettering. Beneath it was our student numbers. “You may open the file.” The command was given, and I flipped open the book. The writing was small and numerous but I read carefully, resisting the urge to scan the sheet. I needed details, not a summary. 

I had just reached the bottom of the page when Ms Sylvester called out “Stop!” and I closed the file. _Georgio Capalo. Son of an Italian pizzeria owner. Works for the New York Times as a freelancer writing articles about high profile drug lords. Married to Elisa Showalter, daughter of a US congressman (also in attendance)._

I scanned the crowd as the doors to the hall were pushed open, trying to figure out who was Elisa Showalter. Every face was covered with a bright smile, save for one. At the very back of the pack, whispering quietly to herself was Rachel Berry. “Elisa, Elisa, Elisa,” she was whispering. 

“Dammit,” I muttered. I let her catch up to me as we entered the hall and I grabbed her by the arm, holding her hand and looping us together. “Hello, gorgeous,” I said, putting on my mild Italian accent.

She looked at me and frowned. “Georgio?”

“What is it, darling?”

She was scowling, but she let me lead her through the hall and towards the buffet. “Nevermind.”

So I was stuck with Rachel. Just my luck. But I knew they were trying to challenge us so I took it in my stride. I selected a curried egg from the buffet and bit into it. Ms Rose had outdone herself. Across the room I could see Finn trying to recall the word for ‘hungry’ in German, and Santana was trying to convince Wes to dance with her despite the fact he was simultaneous trying to flirt with Quinn.  

The teachers were prowling the hall, coming into regular contact with students and starting conversations that clearly bordered on interrogatory, though I had a feeling it wasn’t the answers that were being assessed, but they way that we responded. This was a deep cover operation, and if we slipped up, we were goners. 

I could tell Rachel was clinging to my side, hoping I could get her through the night, but my file had said _sleaze,_ so I ditched her in a conversation with Thad and made my way over to Santana, who was standing by the bar they had created along the side wall of the hall. 

“Drink for a pretty lady?” I said and raised my eyes at the bartender. Dad. He was watching me with hawk eyes, but I ignored him and turned my whole body towards Santana, leaning casually against the bar. 

“I have a boyfriend,” she said and knocked the drink that was presented to her to the floor. Okay, Santana was clearly not the one to be hitting on, although I’m sure in any real situation which involved a boy other than myself, she would be very willing. She was holding up her part well. I stayed at the bar and watched her leave. 

“Miss Ruthie sure doesn’t like being sleazed on by guys like you,” Dad said, slipping into a heavy New York accent. I grabbed the glass of virgin cosmo that he had placed in front of me while Santana was making her scene and stalked away, giving him a dirty look as I went. 

I had just made my way back to the buffet when I was accosted by Rachel who grabbed me by the arm and whispered frantically in my ear, “What were you doing with Ruthie Collins?”

“I was just grabbing a drink,” I said and detached myself once again. But at least she was getting better at holding up the cover. “Go talk to one of your friends, Elisa.” She scowled but stalked off to approach Quinn, who was speaking fast French to Carole. My stepmom was doing rounds of the room, holding flamboyant conversations with everyone she came across.

I found myself on the edge of the dance floor, watching couples move. Okay, so when I say couples, I mean Blaine. He had grabbed Santana and was leading her in an elegant waltz. I sipped my cosmo and watched. Her smile was wide and when the music slowed she leaned her head into his shoulder. Boyfriend then. 

But as I turned to step away and head back to the bar I felt Blaine’s eyes on me. He was looking over Santana’s shoulder, his gaze piercing. I frowned and kept my back turned to him as I returned my glass to the bar and ordered another. I felt like I would be staying around the bar a lot tonight, but at least it felt in character. 

“So, Mr Capalo,” he said, settling himself behind me. I turned and his gaze was flirtatious. _Gay boyfriend?_

“And you are?”

“Richard Campton. I’m heir to the largest company manufacturing children’s toys. I’m expecting the inheritance next July.”

“Waiting for the will to come through?”

“No, the arsenic.” He grinned, showing all his teeth, and I had the distinct feeling Blaine’s sheet had held the term _charmer._ He reached out a hand, placing it against my elbow, and all of me wanted to melt into his touch, but my cover did not like Blaine, and he certainly had no interest in Richard Campton, so I pulled back. 

“Sorry, sir, but I think you’re being a bit forward.”

“Dance with me.” He stepped closer, right into my personal space and once again I moved backwards. 

“Very forward.”

“Just dance with me. I promise it will be amazing. I’m the best dancer in this room. You won’t regret it.” 

I knew the words were part of his cover, but part of me knew he was playing me too. Blaine always knew how to play me, and he wasn’t going to give up an opportunity like this. Plus, I think it would kill him if I scored better than him.

“Would you leave me alone?” I growled. “Creep.” I turned my back on him and spotted Rachel across the room, trying to find me. I had just set my path around the dance floor towards her when I felt the hand on my belt loop, fingers holding me back. 

That was bad enough, that Blaine had used his character’s interests and desires to hold me back, that he was pushing boundaries so far, but it was nothing compared to the sheer mortification I felt when I realized the seam of my pants could not withstand the force. I suddenly regretted not purchasing a new pair of suit pants.

I heard the rip and the blood rushed from my face.

* * *

 

I kept my pace calm as I walked out of the hall, a hand behind my back to surreptitiously hold up my pants as I made my escape. I could feel the loose threads where the stitching had come undone. Grumbling to myself I slipped down the corridor, searching for somewhere out of sight of the main door to find a way to get the damn things to stay. If he was going to press himself on me all night, I couldn’t be doing it in pants that wouldn’t stay up. My cheeks were flushed and my breathing was heavy but the anger was starting to sink in. 

I heard the door open behind me and Carole slipped outside, her eyebrows raised at me. “Kurt,” she said. “You can’t leave the Grand Hall for anything, it’s part of your assessment!”

“Fashion emergency!” I told her and she nodded. 

“Okay, but you be quick, hon. I’ll leave you to it. I have some students who I know need to talk to me. And I’m rusty on my Spanish!”

Great. I’d almost thought for a second there that I might have had an extra pair of hands to deal with the issue. But the one person who probably could have been of help to me ditches with duty to her job. I checked the corridor for any other heads that might be poking out or someone who was miraculously not in the Grand Hall, then stepped out of my pants, holding them up to the light to assess the damage. I hadn’t thought to pack my needle and thread, but the pants had a high waist and if I rolled them over there was a possibility I could hold them up enough to continue with the ball. 

I was just bending over to step back into the pants when I heard the door to the Grand Hall open and someone was approaching me, polished black shoes clacking against the granite floor.

“In a bit of a pickle, Kurt?” Blaine asked, leaning against the wall beside me. His tone was completely different to the man he had been inside the hall. His voice was no longer persistent or predatory. But that didn’t change how angry I was with him. I pulled up the pants in a huff, turning over the waist with rough fingers. 

“Clearly.”

“Need help?”

“Do you have a needle and thread?” It was meant to be a snarky comment, but he was reaching into his blazer pocket, pulling out the little spool. 

“I’ll put the stitches in for you,” he said and leaned down on one knee, pushing my suit jacket up my back to gain access to the back of my pants. His face was inches from my ass, the spool of thread held between his teeth, but I found myself unable to move and he worked diligently, tightening the pants firm around my waist. 

I wanted to yell and scream and tell him it was all his fault, but all I said as I leaned over my shoulder to watch was, “What do they teach you at the Dalton Institute?” He grinned around the spool. 

“I’ve told you before. Things they don’t teach you here.” I knew that hadn’t been what he meant when he’d first said those words, but he was still grinning, so I didn’t press it.

His stitches were precise and even, and he finished the seam with a neatly hidden knot. “Done,” he said with a smile as he stood.

I was just about to thank him for his time as politely as I could manage and try to keep my anger in as he leaned closer to me. I was holding my breath for reasons I couldn’t explain, and a part of me thought maybe he was about to kiss me. But then suddenly the wall behind my back shifted and a mechanical voice screamed “CODE BLACK CODE BLACK.”

And then the lights went out.

* * *

 

There are only two codes put into use at McKinley Academy. The first is a Code Red, used when innocent members of the society are about to enter our premises. It turns our school, set up to teach the top curriculum on spying in the country, into a simple boarding school for the impossibly rich and snooty. A Code Red is a semi regular occurrence, maybe once or twice a semester and every student is trained in the appropriate Code Red action.  

A Code Black means something very different. A Code Black means intruder. Hostile intruder. Not once in my time at McKinley have we had a Code Black and the intention of our security detail was for it to never happen, ever. We had guards and more guards and heat sensitive cameras and facial recognition software. No one could possibly get into our school and into the sensitive areas which would sound a Code Black. 

But someone had.

I stumbled to the closest wall, aiming to feel my way back to the hall by touch alone. The darkness was horribly impenetrable, probably on purpose and I couldn’t see my hands in front of my face. But the klaxons were still ringing and that voice was still saying over and over again, “CODE BLACK CODE BLACK.”

My heart was pounding in my chest but I kept my breathing as calm as possible, thinking logically. Was this part of the test? Or was it the real deal? Were we, at that moment, being invaded by hostile forces, come to take our secrets or worse, our youngest recruits? 

I knew the door to the dining hall had to be around there somewhere. I had walked only a few yards down the corridor before stopping to fix my pants. I kept my feet light against the solid floors and I’d just felt the edge of the heavy doors when they flung open, torches shining in my direction. 

I blinked into the blinding light.

“Kurt?!” I heard Dad’s voice say, and then he was running towards me, shaking me by the shoulders. “Why were you outside the hall? What were you doing? What have you seen?”

I shook my head, trying to hold my footing as he shook me. “I didn’t see anything. I was fixing my pants. I’d only been gone a minute. What’s going on?”

Nobody answered me. I hadn’t expected they would. I was only a student after all. But then the main lights of the building flickered on, an eery glow that seemed nothing like the light that had flooded the room before the Code Black began. Tnd the klaxons came to a whining stop.

“What happened?” I asked again.

“We don’t know. But tell me, Kurt,” Dad asked. “Where’s Blaine?”

The question didn’t make sense to me. He was right there. He’d been-

I turned around, scanning the corridor. Blaine was nowhere to be seen. 

“He was just here,” I said softly. “He just helped me stitch up my suit pants.” It seemed like a dream, and I wondered whether it had ever happened at all. I reached behind my back, searching for his neat stitches. There they were, in an almost perfect seam.

“He was just here.”

* * *

 

_To be continued..._


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